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It was a bright, sunny morning on the coast, and Gal had risen from bed to lounge around the house composing his poetry. He found himself in a familiar rhythm, got comfortable with a well-trodden rhyme scheme, and repeated it over and over again until he came up with no more original words, and sang quietly the initial words. “Way back in days of old, there was a legend told, about a hero known as…”
“Galavant?” Isabella interrupted him.
“Hmm?”
“Could you please come up with a different meter to use for your poetry?”
Isabella and Galavant had not lingered long in the honeymoon phase of their marriage, nor was their happily-ever-after all that happy in their little cottage by the sea. It had everything they both had been yearning for - minus the seven children Izzy had planned on, or the three Gal was hoping they would stick to - but it still seemed, in the months they had lived together, that there was something missing in their lives.
“Or at least stop working out loud,” Isabella continued. “You know how catchy that is. I’ll never get it out of my head.” While he was lounging in their living area, she was getting dressed and putting up her hair, looking at him through the reflection in the mirror. “Haven’t you gotten tired of it, too?”
Gal furrowed his brow defensively. This was a retread of a discussion they’d had at least a hundred times since they got married. “It’s just brainstorming, darling.”
“I know,” Isabella replied, “but once you get it started…”
In order to avoid their conversation escalating into an argument, Galavant walked over to where his wife was fixing her hair in the mirror. He pressed his torso against her back, and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close. “I have just the thing to get it out of your head,” he whispered huskily into her ear.
“There’s no time for that,” said Isabella, prying herself out of his grasp. “I have to be at work in half an hour.”
“Izzy, we’re set for life.” This was a retread of another constant discussion; it came up less often (not as much of an earworm) but it could get just as heated. “You could just stay home and we could have lunch together on the lanai…”
“What are you saying, Galavant?” There was an edge to Isabella’s tone that should have warned him.
Galavant decided, instead, to play dumb. “What?” he asked, feigning innocence. “What’s wrong with lunch?”
“Are you saying that my career isn’t a priority?”
“Sweetheart,” Gal cooed, “you work at a coffee shop. And we don’t have coffee in Medieval England yet. We don’t even have chocolate. Most of what you sell there is hot water.”
“I’m a barista at a coffee shop, thank you very much. And they tell me I’m management material! Just because you’ve retired doesn’t mean that I have. I take pride in the fact that I am a working woman. Besides, if we want to afford seven kids one day, then we’ll need every penny we can earn. If you want someone to stay at home and cook and clean, either do it yourself or… or get a squire!”
The word “squire” floated between them. It was like all the air had been sucked from the room.
“Three kids,” Galavant muttered under his breath. “Three.” And then, a little louder: “I do miss Sid.”
Isabella had not managed to quite quell her anger during their brief silence. “Well… so do I!” she spat, and stalked towards the front door. “Oh, and I’ll be back by five,” she added, “unless Kevin calls in sick today.”
“Tell Kevin I said hello,” Galavant said, wondering briefly how Kevin could accomplish such a thing as calling in sick when phones hadn’t been invented yet.
After Isabella left, Galavant found himself wandering to the lanai in the back of the cottage. It overlooked the beach, and beyond that, the seaside. It was a gorgeous view, and a comforting breeze slipped past. There was only one problem...
“Not again,” Galavant said. “Come on!”
A red line of light pointed out of the ocean and towards the beach. In an instant, something fired, and a small explosion sent sand flying upwards.
Their next-door neighbor had apparently armed dolphins with lasers, and the dolphins liked to use the beach as target practice. Galavant hadn’t been able to enjoy swimming in the ocean even once since they’d moved to the cottage.
“Damn dolphins,” he said. “Damn neighbor.” One of these days, he was going to go over there and give his neighbor a piece of his mind.
“What happened here?”
Isabella had returned from work promptly, and found her husband on the lanai again, looking out towards the water they had yet to touch, over the beach they had yet to set foot on.
“The neighbor’s laser dolphins again,” Gal told her. But more importantly, he held a folded piece of parchment in his hand. “But more importantly, look at this piece of parchment!” he said to Isabella, repeating what the narrator had just said almost word for word. “We got some mail while you were gone. I think you’ll be happy to see who it’s from.”
Isabella opened the piece of parchment and leaned over the lanai railing beside her husband, reading over the letter quickly. This would have been a good time for a musical number but since the show was cancelled there was obviously no budget for that anymore, so everyone had to make do with reading the letter’s text.
Dear fellas - Gal and Isabella -
As you may know I have been on a quest -
We’re rescuing bitches at Gareth’s bequest -
But we’d love to come see
Your new place by the sea
If you’re feeling up for some guests!
“Oh, Sid wrote to us! He’s coming by for a visit!” She said these things like they hadn’t just been written in a letter we all just got to read. “It’s been so long… we haven’t seen him since the wedding.” She turned to her husband. “Did you make up the guest bedroom for our visitors yet?”
“No,” said Galavant. “I was waiting for you.”
Isabella looked at him with daggers in her eyes. “Are you serious right now?” she asked. “I’m exhausted. I’m just getting off a shift.”
Galavant pulled a face. “It’s not like it’s a difficult job, Izzy. You just have to take orders and give people hot drinks.”
“I do not take orders from anyone!” Isabella said, irate. “Okay, well, I do when I’m on the register, but… argh!” She was so frustrated that she nearly crumpled up Sid’s letter and chucked it onto the useless beach. She inhaled deeply and looked down, sheepish. “I’m sorry. I do like having a job, but I’ve never had one before - being a princess, even a warrior princess, is very different from having a nine-to-five gig. It’s far more stressful than I had imagined.”
“Hey, I’m just glad you didn’t have to do any overtime,” Galavant said. “So Kevin came in today?”
“Yeah, Kevin came in today,” Isabella replied.
Gal smiled. “Glad he’s feeling better.”
“He still looks a little pale but he says he’s all right.”
Gal paused for a moment, lost in thought. “Izzy,” he said finally, “are we all right?”
“Yes,” Isabella said immediately. She stopped and furrowed her brow. “No,” she said. She shook her head and sighed. “I don’t know. I’m sorry for snapping at you.”
Gal threw an arm over her shoulder. “And I’m sorry for asking you to take on more than you can handle.”
“Oh, I can handle making up the guest room,” Isabella said. “I just don’t see why you can’t when you’ve been home all day.” She laid her head against her husband’s shoulder anyway, and both of them looked out over the ocean, where dolphins with lasers were taking down seagulls left and right.
The following day Isabella and Galavant were roused from their slumber by what sounded like a horde of dogs approaching their cottage. As they leapt out of bed and ran to the door, they found that it was, in fact, the sound of a horde of dogs approaching their cottage - with only two men keeping the canines from completely overrunning the place.
“Sid!” Galavant shouted over the din, having recognized his former squire immediately.
Isabella joined in the shouting. “Gareth?” she cried out. “These are so many dogs.”
As Sid, Gareth, and the dogs drew closer, Gareth’s voice rose above the noise in one great cry. “Quiet!” he said, and immediately the dogs stopped their barking, their growling, their snuffling, and commenced wagging their tails and pummeling their heads into Gareth’s legs with affection.
“I thought we told you!” Sid said breathlessly. “Didn’t my letter say to expect us all?”
“The letter said you’d been saving bitches all across the land…” Galavant said. “I thought you meant damsels in distress or something. In retrospect, I should have known - I’ve never heard you refer to women with such disrespect in all my life.”
“I knew what he meant,” said Isabella. “Otherwise I would have said something in the earlier scene.”
“Well,” Sid began to explain. “We’ve been searching for Madalena this whole time, but every time we encounter evildoers, we pretty much have to stop them. Broke up a dogfighting ring, for example.”
“It’s just not fair,” said Gareth, reaching down and scratching one of the canines behind the ear. It closed its eyes and smiled widely, leaning into Gareth with all its weight. Gareth continued. “It ain’t right, making these poor pups fight one anover. They can’t even hold their swords proper. They don’t got thumbs.”
“And the armor they had on was ridiculous ,” Sid added.
“Yeah, so,” Sid said, “we were hoping maybe you could give them a good home while we finish our quest to save Madalena.”
Gareth shot him a withering glare. “Wait a second, don’t you dare,” he said. “I’ve already named them, you know. This is Arson, and this one’s Murder, and this one’s called Jaywalking.” He patted the dog leaning up against him for emphasis. “Jaywalking, you’re a good girl, ain’t ya?”
“I don’t think we’re ready for a pet yet anyway,” Isabella said. “I work too much, and Gal is working on his poems all the time…”
Automatically the words slipped out of Galavant’s mouth. “Way back in days of old…”
Isabella elbowed her husband in the gut. “Thank you for thinking of us, though. Perhaps we’ll be ready in a few years. Once we’ve started having kids.”
“Seven, right?” said Gareth. “Better get started soon.”
“Uh, thanks for your input,” Isabella said, narrowing her eyes at him. “Anyway, would you like to come inside? We’ve made up the guest room if either of you need to relax.”
“I’m gonna stay out here, wiv the dogs, if that’s all right,” Gareth said. “Let them run around a bit. They ain’t never been to the beach before.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t take them there, if I were you,” Galavant interjected. “There’s a laser dolphin neighbor problem we’ve yet to address.”
“Sounds like fun!” Gareth replied, and he took the whole horde around to the back of the cottage, letting the din rise noticeably once again as they headed towards the ocean.
So Sid, Isabella, and Galavant all headed back indoors. They opened a few bottles of wine, reminisced together about their old adventures, and, suffice to say, the guest bedroom went completely unused.
The next morning, the three of them woke up to a Sid sandwich - Isabella on her side of the bed, Galavant on his, and the squire firmly tucked in between them. There was a mild sense of panic, a bit of embarrassment, a plot development this author hasn’t worked out quite yet, an eventual confession of mutual love and pining, and, finally, a decision.
“I think I would like to stay here, with you two,” Sid concluded. “As much as I love adventuring - it’s simply not the same without both of you now. But how will I tell Gareth?”
At that moment there was knock at the door, and the boisterous barking of dogs.
“Gareth!” Isabella said. “We locked him out all night with the dogs!”
The three of them dashed to the door, armed themselves in the event of Gareth’s retaliation, and flung the door wide open. The man stood on the other side, with Jaywalking firmly pressed against his side again. He looked directly at Sid and said, “Hey, little buddy. I think I’m going to do most of my adventuring with Jaywalking from now on. No hard feelings. Jaywalking’s just better than you in every way, is all.”
“I can see how you’d feel that way, yeah,” Sid said. “Sorry for locking you out. It’s probably for the best.”
“I din’t even notice,” Gareth said. “We were out all night hunting the dolphins with lasers, me and my crew here.”
“And you all survived?” Galavant asked.
“You know, dolphins are kinda like dogs,” Gareth said. “Dogs of the sea. We’re all good friends now.”
“That still doesn’t solve the problem of our neighbor arming the local wildlife with lasers in the first place,” Isabella said.
“I know,” said Galavant.
“So anachronistic,” said Sid.
“Hey, Gareth,” Galavant asked, “before you and Jaywalking and the fifteen other dogs and dolphins go adventuring away, could you help us out with something?”
“Sure,” said Gareth. “What’s that?”
“We need to see the neighbor,” Galavant growled. He shook his head, disappointed in himself. “That sounded more menacing in my head."
So the four of them, all armed, and Murder and Arson and all the other dogs, marched over to the dark and ominous castle next door to the small seaside cottage.
“Come out, and be prepared to fight,” Galavant said under his breath. “We know you’re in there. Your carriage is in the carriageway.”
Sid looked over at him quizzically. “What are you doing?”
“Rehearsing,” Galavant replied. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to sound threatening. I’ve got to get my groove back.”
“But… the carriageway?”
“Well, what do you call it?”
“The driveway,” Sid said. “You drive on a carriageway. You leave your carriage in the driveway. It’s common sense, Galavant.”
“You know I love a good fight scene as much as anyone,” Isabella said, interrupting, “but perhaps we should simply try knocking first.”
So when they arrived at the tall, arched doorway, they did, in fact, try knocking first. The door swung inward slowly, into a depth-defying darkness, and as the light trickled in a tall, slim, regal figure was silhouetted against the shadows.
“Yes, it’s me, Madalena,” she said. “I’ve lived next door to you this whole time.”
Isabella, Sid, Galavant, and Gareth all gasped, and took a step back. Even the dogs fell silent with surprise.
“Why are you acting so shocked?” Madalena asked. “After all, I was tagged in the header.”
“The header?” Gareth said.
“Besides that,” she continued, “Isabella, Galavant - you’ve been living next to this tall, dark, ominous, cliffside castle since your wedding. Who else did you think was going to live in it?”
“I thought there would be a big bad for season three,” Isabella said.
“It was pretty clearly telegraphed that that was going to be me. Again,” Madalena said. “They were setting me up to be pretty villainous. What’s with all the dogs?”
“These are my buddies,” said Gareth. “We go adventuring together. I’m planning to train them to joust, just like in the painting you threw in the moat.”
“Listen, I know this is anticlimactic,” Madalena said, “but I’m not in the mood for a huge battle scene or musical number right now. Gareth, you can stay. Galavant, Isabella, Squid - “
“It’s Sid.”
“I’ve forgotten again already,” she said testily. “You should know that the only reason I gave the dolphins lasers in the first place was to keep the rampaging Vikings at bay. So if you’d rather be pillaged…”
“Wait,” Isabella said. “Vikings?”
“There’s also a problem with cannibal elves,” Madalena continued. “I’d been recruiting them to be my dark army, but they’ve turned on me, so it will be handy to have all these dogs around,” said Madalena. “Looks like you’re on your own.” Madalena pulled her consort Gareth inside by the collar, and the dogs bounded eagerly after them.
The door shut with a creak, leaving Isabella, Sid, and Galavant on the outside. Slowly they turned around, and found themselves facing a small army of cannibal elves.
“Well,” Galavant said.
“At least we’re together,” said Isabella.
“Together’s always what we’ll be, for what feels like eternity,” Sid said, with a musical lilt in his voice, catching on another familiar tune.
“Oh, come on, Sid!” Galavant said. “I don’t need a song stuck in my head just before we die.”
But then, soaring through the skies, came a high-pitched and recognizable scream. It was King Richard, riding on the back of the fully-grown Tad Cooper, ready to mow down the army of cannibal elves in a single fiery breath.
“Hello everyone!” Richard shouted as Tad Cooper flew closer to the ground. “Look, I’m the mother of dragons!”
“What is this, a fusion?” Sid asked.
“This is certainly a twist,” Isabella said. “Tad Cooper wasn’t tagged at all!”
After that deus ex machina ending, Isabella, Sid, and Galavant returned to the seaside cottage, free from the worries of dolphins with lasers and cannibal elves and several other main characters, and together they lived happily ever after, occasionally fighting off rampaging Vikings the old-fashioned way.